Monday, July 31, 2006

Devotional - "How to dream"

How to dream. When are dreams too big? Pulled in more than one direction. Enemy snatching thoughts. Acting on impulse.

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How to dream

Read: 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfil every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.

2 Thessalonians 1:11

When I was a very little girl, my mother and I would go to my grandmother’s house and pick blackberries from her garden. Later that day we’d start the process of making them into a preserve. “Why can’t we add fishfingers, Mummy? I like fishfingers.”

“Not in jam, you wouldn’t, sweetheart.” My mother would smile at me, but carry on stirring the sweet smelling pot of bubbling fruits and sugar.

“But I want fishfingers in it!”

Luckily my wonderful mother knew that fishfinger and blackberry jam was not the way to go, it would have been a terrible waste of food and time. Not to mention the fact that I might have actually wanted to try the stuff, even asked other people to. Yet at that moment I truly believed nothing would fulfil me more than a fishfinger and jam sandwich. What’s more, it’s as true today as it was back then. I still have these wild ideas, these things I selfishly crave. I still feel the urge to throw caution to the wind, and not immediately consult the Word, in my excitement. I sometimes feel I want to be swept away by events. But we don’t really know what we want. We think that we do, we think that the day we stand up and “take control of our own lives” is the very best and most important day of those lives. But it isn’t. The day that each of us stands up and accepts Jesus Christ as our Saviour, our Lord and salvation, that’s the day to really smile about.

I don’t always remember to glory the Lord. Before I make decisions, I don’t always stop to ask Him what He wants me to do. I’m working on it, though. The last time I made a fishfinger and blackberry jam of my situation I hope truly will have been the last time.

Lord, please help me to raise my choices to Your ear, to let You make the decisions. I know that it’s Your plan I’m following, You want my life to work out well even more than I do. By asking for Your help I am not showing weakness, instead I give glory to You and the trust I hold in You.